


Take Flight

by Serie11



Series: Aegyls in Chicago [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Case Fic, Chicago, Fantasy setting, Gen, M/M, Magic, Murder Mystery, Reverse Big Bang Challenge, Wingfic, Wizards, this is probably more pre slash than slash whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-16 09:32:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5823466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/pseuds/Serie11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An overworked public wizard, Dean doesn’t have time for much more than a cold beer and his annoying apprentice when he isn’t investigating the grisly magical deaths that abound in a city as magically potent as Chicago. While most of his work consists of catching the bad guy, they don’t put the hours of research, study, and magical headaches that Dean has to go through in the papers when he does. However, his newest case is something that he doesn’t come across often – an aegyl has died, and the Clan Leader in charge of Novak Flightcentre has asked for public assistance from the Chicago PD. Dean is dropped headfirst into a flurry of aegyl politics, dragons, blood magic, and handsome aegyls, all the while having to deal with his apprentice turning a man’s head into a frog – the Council of Wizards don’t take offences like that lightly. </p><p>Yeah. He’s had less complicated weeks on the job, but if there’s one thing that Dean Winchester’s good at, it’s getting to the bottom of mysteries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the Reverse Bang and [eaksoy's](http://eaksoy.livejournal.com/) [superb art](http://somuchcolour.tumblr.com/post/138077422284/reverse-big-bang-take-flight-by-serie11-pre)! Thank you to Google translate for all Latin/Hebrew. If you know any better, please let me know :D

Dean looked at the body laid out in the middle of the storeroom. Then he looked at his notes. Then he looked at the body again.

“Charlie!” He yelled out, calling to his partner. “You didn’t say anything about the victim being an aegyl!”

The red head stuck her head into the room. “Oh yeah. Dean, the murdered woman also has wings. Forgot to mention that.”

She retreated just as quickly as she’d come, and Dean rolled his eyes. She was probably flirting with one of the maybe witnesses that she was meant to be questioning. They were in a stable, and what does she do? Ignore the dragons, and go straight for the ladies. Just his luck, she’d mortally offend some aegyl’s mother, and _he’d_ have to deal with the fallout. Because the world hated him like that. His blue butterfly settled on his collar and sat there, fanning its wings slightly. It didn’t do that often; it liked to fly around. Like Dean, it must be feeling the heavy atmosphere in the room.

Dean looked over the body again. There was an artist making quick sketches of the scene in lieu of photos – the reason that Dean had gotten this case was because there was a stink of magic around the entire crime scene. While that was good for him, it wasn’t so good for technology, and the department didn’t have any extra money to use on buying cameras that fried because the magical field in the area was too strong. It was the same reason that Dean lived a few blocks away from the precinct, and why they usually had to send a runner to him because his phone never worked; magic hated technology, and that meant the majority of modern comforts. While Dean was glad that he’d never be forced to fly in an aeroplane, he was a bit more annoyed when his car broke down for the fifth time in a month.

The artist got up and moved so he could work from another direction. Dean sighed; so far, there didn’t seem to be any glaringly obvious reasons for one Anna Milton to be killed in her own stables, but there you have it. Weird shit happened, and most of the time, Dean was neck deep in it. That was the priced you paid when you were a public wizard instead of a private one; sometimes, Sam’s lifestyle seemed a lot better than his own. Dean knew that that was when he just had to take a step back, drink some shitty coffee, and get his head straight. If he was thinking that Sam’s job, stuck up in a musty room all day surrounded by books and candlelight was looking good, there was something seriously wrong happening.

Although Sam never had to deal with dead people on his shoes, so he did have that going for him.

Charlie would hopefully uncover some witnesses or just people who were close to Anna that they could question more thoroughly. She was good at her job, even if she was just a human; sometimes, Dean thought that made her better at her job, anyway. She would get some answers. It was up to Dean to take an initial reading of the site, and to determine if magic had been used in the victims’ death. He didn’t even need to consider the second question; even an unTalented human could feel the magic in the room at present. He could see the artist sweating from where he was standing; excess magic was hard on a dwarf’s senses. And there was _a lot_ of excess magic hanging about. Dark magic. Blood magic.

Dean took a deep breath in and then exhaled. The magic was heavy and there was a dark intent around it; he had no doubts that it had been used in killing the aegyl that was laid out in front of him. Although perhaps it had only been used to subdue her; there was a very large stab wound in her side, and even aegyls needed blood to live. He’d have to wait for the official report to confirm it, but from what he could see right now, she had bled to death. It was a slow and painful way to die, and it set Dean’s teeth on edge that someone could just stand there, or leave her there, while the life slowly drained out of her. Aegyls lived for longer than humans, but they had very few children in their community; if you had one child, you were considered blessed. As such, they were usually very close to other aegyls in where they chose to work and live. Since Anna ran the Novak Flightcentre, there would be many people who had known her, and many people to interview. Her position just raised another host of questions – was it because of her job that Anna had been killed? Or was it something else that had caused someone to kill her with magic?

Dean sighed and shook his head. Right now, he only had more questions than answers, so he would start as he always did – ask around, and see who knew Anna the best. They would likely be able to give some insight as to why she was killed.

~

The precinct was very busy, like always. Cops moved around quickly in their distinctive bright blue; the colour that no one else in the city dared to emulate. That blue said _law_ nice and loudly, and it made the ones in the precinct that weren’t wearing it stand out even more.

Said people were generally wizards like himself; wearing long cloaks of black, grey or white to denote their status in the Wizard’s Guild. White was for junior wizards; they had either little experience, or little Talent. Black was for those wizards who had fought their way up the rankings and won a spot where they were respected – the Council. Dean’s own cloak was grey; in between, not a novice, but not recognised either. He’d made journeyman after only a year of being a novice; a prestigious rise. But then he’d gotten into shit with the authorities of the Guild, and that killed the spark of any future he could have had. He was stuck with journeyman forever; he knew that, and while he wasn’t exactly _bitter_ as per say, he didn’t like people talking about it. Ever.

There was only one black-cloak that ever made his way into the precinct, and he sure as hell didn’t work there. Dean bit his tongue and smoothed a pleasant expression over his face when he saw that his father was standing next to his nook of a desk, John’s broad shoulders hidden under his sweeping midnight black cloak. The smoky black hound at his father’s feet watched him with guarded eyes, and Dean tried to avoid looking at his father’s spirit.

“Dad,” Dean said lowly. John had likely known that he was approaching even before he’d stepped inside the building; his father was a sensor type, and with that, could feel most strong magic within a few hundred metres of himself. It was a bit harder in cities like Chicago, with the massive population making things a bit blurrier. Dean had inherited some of his father’s abilities, but most of his magic came from his mother’s side; namely, the ability to blow things up. Loudly. He had few memories of his mother, but one of the ones that was burned into his brain was the night the Guild had come to arrest her. She’d blown most of them up, as well as half the street, the house, and herself, in an effort to get away. Dean still remembered her bright blue dove flapping wildly to try and escape the flames, only to be consumed greedily by its humans own mage-fire.

“Dean,” John greeted in his normally lacklustre way. Dean didn’t remember a time when John had been interested in him as more than a potential wizard, and later, a troublemaker that had to be watched. For him to be here now meant that the Council wanted something. Just to make his life that much harder, it probably had something to do with this case. Awesome.

“You got a reason to drop in, or is it just to say hello?” Dean asked, putting his files down on his desk with a solid _thump_. He didn’t turn his back to John, even though his father could likely kill him within a second if he wanted to; John was one of the highest ranked wizards for his age. Dean wouldn’t want to face off against him in a fight, so he mostly kept his head down and tried not to antagonise him that much. John made it hard sometimes. Most of the time.

“The Council has extended a formal invite for your presence,” John told him, voice still low. “Tonight in the Guild hall.” The dog between them _huffed_ and Dean winced at the stream of quietly aggressive magic that it exuded.

“Let me guess, while you say invite, it’s mandatory, yes?” Dean looked at the innocent looking piece of paper that his father was holding out to him. It probably had some sort of nasty enchantment on it that would force Dean to attend; like slowly cutting off all the blood to his extremities until he presented himself to the Council. No thank you. His butterfly danced about his head, vibrant blue and sparkling, so opposite to the oppressive nature of his father’s mutt.

“There is a matter that you need to be present for to discuss,” was all that John said. Damn him. He never said what was really happening, and the meeting would probably just be about something that Dean had no interest in; last year, they’d tried to get him to sign himself over to them as free labour for thirty years in exchange for his record being cleared. He’d spat at the Wand, which had probably not helped his cause at all. Honestly, he was still puzzling over the fact that they’d let him out of the Council chambers alive.

John was still looking at him expectantly. Dean sighed internally and took the piece of paper. Flicking it open, he read the contents inside with a growing dismay. “… She did _what?_ ”

“You took responsibility for her,” John said, relentlessly. “Now you need to clean up your mess.”

Dean resisted the urge to hit something. Stars above, you’d think that she would be able to control herself better than this.

~

Krissy Chambers looked very small when Dean appeared next to her. Her normally rambunctious presence was stilled, and she was staring at the floor resignedly. The white cat that normally tried to catch Dean’s butterfly was huddled, silent and still, around one of her ankles.

“They’re going to seal my Talent, aren’t they,” his apprentice asked him, no emotion in her voice. To Dean, that was worse than if she had been screaming.

“We don’t know what they’re going to do yet,” Dean tried to reassure her, but he was sure that it sounded as hollow as he felt. This wasn’t the first or second time that Krissy had been in trouble with the Council, but it might as well be last. The Council didn’t take well to young wizards wasting their time. As if it could read his thoughts, the cat at Krissy’s feet hissed loudly, its fur standing up.

Krissy had blasted some guy’s head and turned it into a frog for assaulting a woman that had been on the street. While Dean didn’t disapprove of that, he did disapprove of her using magic in non-regulation ways. That was a great way to get your Talent sealed, no matter how old you were. Krissy was just a white-cloak as well; she hardly had any status that she could use. The best she had was that Dean was friends with her, and had agreed to sponsor her when she’d fucked up for the second time, about six months ago. She’d been pressing herself to stay on the straight and narrow since then, knowing that one more slip up would likely mean she would be kicked out of the Guild. And the Guild didn’t like renegade wizards running around their city; Krissy’s Talent would be seared out of her, and then they would let her go, a completely powerless human. Ignoring the occasional side effects of vomiting, severe, mostly permanent headaches, and intermittent insanity, most of the time the procedure worked out well enough. It was just not something that Dean would wish on anyone, even the dusty pricks on the Council.

Having your Talent seared was like getting cut off from the world; Dean had heard Talent described as ‘another sense’ that only wizards had. It was like someone blinding you or cutting your tongue out so you couldn’t taste. The way that it was done was even more barbaric – the wizard who was doing the sealing would kill the spirit of the wizard who had done wrong. The white cat at Krissy’s feet might be living its last minutes.

Losing his magic was not something that Dean ever wanted to happen. However, Krissy looked like she had few other options in front of her. She would face the consequences of her actions as well; she was like that. That meant that she had even less options; running away was most of what Dean had come up with so far. There were a few other options turning around in his head, but they had yet to form into anything solid.

Dean put a hand on her shoulder as the blank faced, bored looking grey-cloak nodded for them to go into the main hall, a purple toad sitting next to the paper on his desk. Dean grit his teeth for a moment to get rid of some of his frustration; it was likely that they were number twenty three on a list of things to get done tonight. None of the eight black-cloaks on the Council cared for a young white-cloak that had broken the rules. Other than his father, Dean only had one ally on the Council, which was why he’d gotten off ‘lightly’ all those years ago when he’d committed his own offence. Bobby was one of the most powerful wizards in the room, second only to the current Wand. The internal politics of the position – which Dean generally paid little attention to – meant that Bobby and the Wand had little respect for each other, and generally disliked the other. That appeased most of the wizarding community, and kept the power balance in the Council about level. If Dean couldn’t get Bobby on his side in this, Krissy was going to be screwed over hard.

Dean kept his head high as he walked into the Council chambers, looking each of the council members in the eye; if they were looking at him, that is. One on the end was whittling something into his staff with a carving knife, and the wizard sitting next to John looked like she’d fallen asleep.

Ellen Harvelle was another member of the Council who probably wouldn’t want to fuck with him just because; and Bobby and Ellen combined could do marvellous things. Her pale yellow owl sat on her shoulder, preening its ghostly wing.  She nodded to him and then spoke, her voice unnaturally loud in the echoing hall.

“Item sixteen on January the fourth, internal matter. White-cloak Krissy Chambers has abused her powers to,” she looked down at the page in front of her and her mouth pursed as she tried not to smile. “Turn a man’s head into a frog’s head. This is the third such offence that Miss Chambers has committed, and as such, her Talent now must be considered. Her sponsor, Dean Winchester, is here to defend her, but her actions also fall on his head. However, as Mr Winchester’s case has already been judged by the Council, and his punishment one of the harshest we can give, I move to say that all such punishment should instead fall on Miss Chambers, who has committed the act that brings us together tonight.”

Dean’s hand tightened on Krissy’s shoulder as Ellen spoke. She gave him a glance filled with apology, but Dean just shook his head once, sharply. Ellen had a soft spot for him, which was why she was doing this; she’d rather see Krissy get her Talent seared than any harsher penalty fall on him.

“I second that motion,” John said, after a few seconds had passed. Dean refused to look at his father, keeping his eyes on the Wand. The Wand’s piercing eyes studied both of them before he nodded as well, the blue hawk on his desk tilting its head at them to study them with an identical stare. Dean felt his heart stutter; any hope of saving Krissy’s Talent suddenly seemed very far away.

“The defendant may now state their case,” Ellen said, voice confident. Dean took a shaky breath and lifted his chin a bit higher. His butterfly fluttered about in front of him, doing its best to try and intimidate the Council. They all looked very unimpressed.

“Krissy has been convicted of this type of offence before, that is true. And while using magic outside of regulations often is a bad idea, in this case it was simply her emotions getting the better of her for a second. The man that Krissy assaulted was assaulting another woman, and Krissy used her magic to solve the situation instead of calling the police. This means that her actions had no ill intent behind them, and as such do not mean that Krissy has broken the spirit of the regulations – after all, they are there to keep wizards in check and not have them abuse their powers to gain unfair advantages over humans or other species that cannot use magic.”

“I would say that this argument could be used, if this had not been her third charge.” Dean flicked his eyes over to the woman he had thought was sleeping; her beady eyes still shone from under her grey hair, and Dean almost missed the wispy white spider that acted as an ornament in her braid. She didn’t move, but Dean could tell that all of the Council members listened when she spoke. “As such, I can see nothing else but a young woman who will once more abuse her Talent if she is let free; I move to sear her Talent.”

“Krissy is sixteen years old,” Dean said loudly, before anyone could utter their agreement. He tried not to let desperation enter his voice as he continued. “She is one of the most Talented wizards her age. To sear her Talent would be a waste to the community.”

“To have her becoming a rouge would be more than a waste to the community,” a wizened, older Indian man said, leaning forward slightly. He had a violet snake curled around his neck. “The Council has promised to safeguard _all_ wizards, and that means that we cannot lightly ignore those who may turn their backs on our way.”

Dean ignored how Krissy was beginning to shake under his hand. “Her lack of black intent can be seen in _all_ three of her offences,” he bit out. “She has never used her magic in a way that breaks regulations pre-emptively. All of her offences are of her defending others. She only wants to protect and help others with her Talent. Krissy came into her Talent far earlier than most wizards do – her teenage years, _impulsive, emotional_ years, were filled with magic. Can any of you say that you didn’t do things you wouldn’t now when you were a teenager? How much worse would those things have been if you had had access to magic?”

There was a slight rumble around the room, but Dean couldn’t tell if it was positive or negative; after all, some of these wizards sitting on the council were over two hundred years old. He was asking them to remember back to a long time ago.

The Wand leaned forward a bit in his chair. “Very well. If you say that she is so eager to help, Dean Winchester, then I say this: Krissy Chambers will be given a place at the Police Department of Chicago, for them to use as they see fit, until she has definitively proved that she has control over her magic and her emotions. If she acts out one more time before then, her Talent will be sealed. All those who say yea?”

Dean closed his eyes for a second as dead silence filled the room. Then, one after another, yea’s were said, until he counted six. Two wizards on the Council voted against him, but that was something that he was more than used to. The important thing was, Krissy got to keep her Talent. While she might see working at the Chicago PD as something that she might not want to do, it was far better than the alternative, and even she would admit that.

“Decision passed: it is recorded so.” Ellen waved her hand and a soft gold light filtered onto the page of the massive tome in front of her, her owl shuffling slightly so that it didn’t fall on its tail feathers. Dean couldn’t see it from where he was, but he knew that words were quickly writing themselves onto the pages to reflect what had happened at the meeting.

“I assume that you can work everything out on the other end,” the Wand said, looking off to the side. “Seeing as you know how everything in this process works.” Dean bowed, probably not as low as he should have, and pressed down on Krissy’s shoulder to make her bow as well. He then pulled her out of the room, her eyes distant and face stuck in a stunned expression. Dean didn’t look at the wizard who guarded the Council, tugging Krissy a little closer and heading towards the transportation mirror.

The Council was held underground in the Wiltshire, underneath Stonehenge. It was a conflux of ley lines, which had been manipulated over the centuries to form devastatingly powerful wards around the Council’s headquarters. Nothing could get in that wasn’t allowed in. Of course, that made the Council paranoid about things like corruption, black magic and young wizards like Krissy going astray, but that was generally overlooked by most of the wizarding community. They needed to Council to feel safe, and in turn they looked over most of the Council’s more… foolish decisions.

“I’m going to keep my magic?” Krissy said, in a very small voice.

“Only if you don’t fuck up again,” Dean told her, seeing the double doors that led into the Transportation Hall. A steady stream of wizards moved in and out of the room, exiting and entering the Council’s HQ.

Dean headed towards the mirror that would lead them back to Chicago, weaving his way around the other people in the hall. Krissy pulled herself together enough for the scan that happened every time someone went to be transported, and then huddled back under Dean’s arm as he raised his right hand and said the few simple Latin words for the spell that would take them back to his city.

Krissy’s weight beside him kept him centred until they made it back home.

~

His young wizard stood a tad too close as Dean signed them both in for Krissy’s first shift. The officer behind the desk looked at Krissy slightly quizzically, but Dean just smiled brightly at her and then whisked Krissy past her, into the depths of the precinct.

Dean had been working for the CPD for almost twelve years now. Like Krissy, he’d been very young when his Talent had activated. Even though John had tried to steer him on the right path, he was taken up with trying to gather the political clout needed for him to win the next black-cloak position. He hadn’t had much time for Dean, but he’d been young and idiotic, and had idolised his father anyway. Sam had seen through him faster than Dean, and had taken the excuse to study at a Magi’s college to leave Chicago. Dean got messages delivered by raven every few weeks from his little brother, detailing his studies. Sam was nine years into the equivalent of a Master’s Degree in magic; it took fourteen years for a student to achieve Mage status, but Sam over halfway there. Every time he thought about it, Dean had to fight not to smile – he was so proud of his brother.

However, when he’d been young and dumb, like Krissy, he’d made some bad choices that had landed him a permanent position in the CPD. Dean called it community service on bad days, but most of the time he liked working with the police. He could solve things that vanilla humans had no idea about, could consult on a number of cases and blow things up when demons tried to break into the Federal Reserve Bank. Which reminded him – he had to talk to Charlie about the aegyl murder. She’d had more than enough time to question the first few witnesses, and while he’d felt bad ditching her yesterday, he’d needed to be with Krissy. She would have covered for him.

He was just about to knock on Captain Hawkins door when Gordon came around the corner. Dean didn’t need any magical training to know that he was spitting for a fight, so he shoved Krissy behind him and fixed a pleasant smile to his face. Merlin, he hated this prick.

“Winchester,” Gordon snarled.

“Good morning to you to, Gordon,” Dean said blandly, looking over his shoulder.

“Don’t you try to talk snappily at me, wand wanker,” Gordon snapped. Gordon liked calling him that – not only did it demean his status as a wizard, Dean was pretty sure Gordon got off on finding creative ways to imply that he was less of a human being because he was bi. “And what have you got there? Some poor girl who you’re going to try and brain wash with your shit. I don’t know why the fuck you’re allowed in here.”

“I don’t know why your head is particularly far up your ass today, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t take it on Krissy here. Who’s _sixteen_.”

“What’s happening here?”

Dean sighed internally in relief as Annie stuck her head out of her door.

“Captain,” Gordon grated.

Annie Hawkins, Captain of the Chicago Police Department and one of the reasons Dean got up in the morning, nodded to him slightly. There weren’t a lot of things that Dean was a hundred percent grateful for in life, but Annie was one of them. If she wasn’t in charge of the precinct, he’s pretty sure he would have killed someone else in the time that he’d been here.

“I hope nothing’s going on here,” Annie drawled, leaning against her doorframe. She raised an eyebrow, and Gordon, never stable on his best day, snapped.

“Gah! You only favour him because you want powerful aces to fill out your team.”

Dean grimaced as he watched the other man stalk away. Annie ran a hand through her hair, sighing.

“Don’t worry about him. Everything will sort itself out with that one. You’re both valued members of the team, and I wouldn’t like to lose either of you. But you know that most of the people here will expect me to take Gordon’s side; most only tolerate you. You’ll have to live with it.”

“Yeah, because you can’t fire me,” Dean muttered. Annie frowned.

“Don’t get too bitter about that just yet Dean. It’s too early in the morning to justify breaking out the scotch. Now who’s your friend?”

“She’s in the same position that I was,” Dean told her, and Annie’s eyes turned calculating.

“I see. You kill someone too, kid?”

“N-no,” Krissy stuttered. “But I did turn a man’s head into a frog’s head.”

Annie chuckled at that. “I see. You might just fit in around here. Dean, I got a call from Charlie saying that she’s at the aegyl murder scene this morning. You might want to head down there, fast. She sounded antsy. I’ll take care of this one.”

Dean nodded once. He squeezed Krissy’s shoulder and smiled until he got a smile in return, and then turned to walk back out the way he had come, keeping an eye out for Gordon. He grabbed his staff and cloak and was out the door before he could be accosted by anyone else wanting to take a piece out of his hide.

~

The _Novak Flightcentre_ was a lot too fancy for Dean’s taste.

There wasn’t the usual smell of dragon in the air when he approached the grounds, no heavy stink to overpower his nose. The cobblestones under his feet weren’t stained yellow with brimstone for the dragons, and there wasn’t the scent of blood from fresh kills of venison or cattle. It was too… normal, for a place that held upwards of two hundred giant, flying beasts that could rip your head off with a stray tail swipe and not even notice until they used your decapitated body as a play toy.

Dean didn’t really have any negative emotions towards dragons, as such. He respected them; a large, healthy respect. Because not only did the majority of dragons have fiery breath that could melt rock, most could also use magic and ‘talk’ with their riders via telepathy. The fact of it was, dragons had little to do with the murder of Anna Milton besides her working in a dragon stable, so there was absolutely no reason to interact with any of the dragons that frequented said stable. Or at least, that was what he was telling himself.

Charlie was easy to spot, like always. His partner’s red hair was vibrant in the cold January weather. It also helped that she was the only one other than him in the whole courtyard to not possess wings. Dean hadn’t been so _close_ to this many aegyl at any point in his life previously, so he was trying not to stare. Close up, the wings were just… so _big_.

“… see. Can you recount the details of that day, as best you can please?”

The aegyl that Charlie was currently talking to had dark hair, and was the only person in the large courtyard to have black wings. He was shockingly handsome, which Dean pushed to the back of his mind for later. Something about the black wings tickled at the back of Dean’s mind, but he shrugged it off as he went to stand next to his partner.

“Of course I can, it was only two days ago,” the man was saying. “When would you like me to begin?”

“In the morning, if you would,” Dean said, smiling the smile he used on people he was trying to get information out of. The aegyl frowned a little at him, but Charlie spoke before he could.

“Dean! I need to talk to you about some things, but I was just about to grab what Castiel here thought happened. He worked directly under Anna and was one of the people who knew her schedule intimately.” Dean’s butterfly landed on her shoulder, flaring its wings possessively. Dean liked Charlie, and so did his spirit.

The aegyl – Castiel – nodded. “Yes. Anna’s loss has been taken very hard by the flock. It’s been daylight for almost three hours now, and yet none of the dragons have left their perches. We’re beginning to worry.” The aegyl flicked his dark wings, and Dean watched them, fascinated despite himself. He’s always been interested in aegyls, even though his job meant that he didn’t get to interact with them very often. Aegyls preferred to govern themselves and investigate their own murders, when they did happen.

“The dragons cared about Anna?” Dean asked, interested. He didn’t know that dragons would take that much interest in who was tasked with the wellbeing of the stable in general. Their personal caretakers, yes, but not Anna, who would have had little real contact with the dragons themselves.

“Of course,” Castiel said, squinting at him. Dean took a step towards him, away from the sun. That was why Castiel was squinting, right? It had nothing to do with Dean wanting to get a closer look at his wings. “Anna was present at the majority of these dragon’s hatchings. They all know her. Anna made sure that she personally knew every single dragon, so she could decide what was best for who, on any matter. I can only hope that I will be a just replacement.”

“You’re getting Anna’s job?” Dean asked, waving his hand. A small blue orb appeared, ready to record notes and voices. He could do images as well, but that took a bit more energy than he really wanted to use for this, even to record Castiel’s pretty face.

Castiel stared at the orb for a few seconds before he spoke, eyes flicking between it and Dean. “Yes. My father is the owner of this flock. I was meant to have Anna’s job eventually, but I was too young when our last flock-watcher died. Anna took over, and has been here for almost twenty years. She will be missed by the aegyls as well as the dragons.”

Hmm. Dean knew that twenty years wasn’t that much in aegyl time, who could live for over five centuries, but it might gall a young aegyl who thought that they deserved to make the decisions in the stables. At the moment, dragon riding, and even more, betting on those dragons, was a very lucrative business. Castiel may have wanted to get in on that before the hype died down – in his Googling of the Novak Flightcentre yesterday, he’d come across a few news articles about them not selling to known dragon riders for the purposes of betting. Perhaps Castiel had been tired of waiting for Anna to give up her spot to him, and had decided to hurry the process up. All aegyl all possessed magic, but it was a different kind to human magic, and they didn’t have spirits, like human wizards did. It varied in them like the ability to speak persuasively or ride a horse well came and went in humans – just another trait that some had to a greater degree than others. Usually he could tell human and aegyl magic apart (thank you, John, for the one thing you passed on that is useful) due his father’s abilities, but he’d thought that it had been human magic that had held Anna down while she’d bled out.

“Did Anna have strong magic?” Dean asked.

Castiel frowned slightly. Dean tried not to find the tilt of his lips attractive. “She did have magic, although she rarely used it. There isn’t much call for it, in an environment such as this. And the dragons don’t like foreign magic where they roost.”

Aegyl were naturally resistant to human magic, so if Anna had been even only mildly Talented, whoever subdued her must have been very powerful. A match to his own abilities, at least.

“It was a normal day,” Castiel said, and Dean must have zoned out enough to ignore Charlie asking him about the day of the murder again. “I was with Sophia and Raziel in the morning. We were getting ready for a few of the Frost dragons to hatch, which they’d been showing signs of for days. I was the one who was tasked with sitting with them to alert the other two when the eggs started to crack. I was here when Anna was murdered.” Dean heard his voice crack slightly, and Castiel ducked his head for a second so he could compose himself. “I was across the courtyard when it happened. I could have stopped it, if I’d been paying more attention. If I’d…” He trails off, and Dean sees a glimpse of true remorse in his features. His black wings shuffled, and he shook out his feathers before going on. “They must have cast a warding spell around the perimeter, for me not to hear anything. I’m normally quite adept at sensing magic, especially foul magic. It was only a hundred metres away; I should have known.”

So while he looked pretty broken up about it, he’d basically just admitted that he had no alibi, was alone when it had happened, and was a hundred metres away from the crime scene. Either he had no idea that they would consider him a suspect, or Castiel was truly grief stricken. Dean doubted that it was the latter – aegyls were notorious for having little emotion. Even if Castiel was sad about Anna’s death, he shouldn’t be feeling too much. Aegyls couldn’t feel, that was all. Just like dwarves couldn’t cast magic, and humans couldn’t fly.

Dean looked at Castiel with sharp eyes as Charlie pestered him with more questions. The aegyl looked clean, the body paint that most of them wore perfect and not smudged. Charlie caught his eye and Dean could tell that they were thinking the same thing – they’d come back and ask Castiel more questions, sooner rather than later. Dean made a mental note for him to be the one who came back to ask.

“Is there anyone that you think would want to hurt Anna?” Charlie asked.

Castiel moved one shoulder slightly, which Dean took for an aegyl version of a shrug. They all seemed to do things subtly; when you had five hundred years, he supposed you could afford to be subtle. “She refused to sell to any of the owners who she thought would mistreat the dragons. The dragons that come out of these stables are among the finest on the continent, so everyone wants them for dragon racing. Anna turns down most buyers though. Perhaps you could look into who wanted to buy from here?” Sensible as well as easy on the eyes. He was going to have to make sure he kept things professional between them.

“Are you going to open up your business?” Dean asked him.

Castiel hesitated. “Perhaps. It is something that warrants attention. I will review Anna’s decisions, and if I agree with them, I will keep them.”

Charlie and Dean shared another look. “I’ll take a walk around, if you don’t mind,” he said, and Castiel shook his head. Dean moved off, his butterfly launching itself into the air after him.

The stables were as well kept inside as they were outside. Dean saw very few evidence of dragons anywhere; they were all behind their own personal obsidian walls. A few doors were half open, like horse stables. Dean could just see over the top of most of them, to spy vibrantly coloured green and sparkling red dragons curled up in corners, or yellow and purple speckled dragons hanging by their tails from the ceiling.

There were few aegyl about. The only ones that Dean could see were the young ones who still had brown, scruffy, downy feathers on their stubby wings. For a race that supposedly had very few kids, there were a lot of children scurrying about, tending to the dragons. Perhaps aegyl sent their children here, hoping to get an opportunity to rise in the ranks.

As he rounded the corner, a conspicuously human woman was leaning on one of the obsidian doors, looking over into the room where the dragon inside was. Dean jumped as a blast of fire came out of the open door, the woman in front of it calmly ducking before her head could be disintegrated.

Dean spotted the golden lynx at her heels a second before she turned to face him. The wizard looked at him as calmly as she did the dragon in the pen in front of her, before dismissing him and turning back to what she was looking at.

“Excuse me,” Dean said, staying away from the softly glowing rock and out of range of the probably angry dragon inside the pen. “Can you please state your business and what you are doing on the premises?”

The woman lazily turned to look at him. Dean refused to gulp as her predatory glance looked him over, lingering on the soft glow of his butterfly in his hair. A single, perfectly coiffed eyebrow rose daintily as she assessed him.

“I’m here to look at the products, darling.” Her accent was European, but Dean had always been terrible at placing them, so he couldn’t glean anymore from that. “The owner knows that I’m here. Say, have you seen a perfectly annoying, red haired winged wench around? She’s in charge of selling these beasts.” The woman took a step backwards as another blast of fire came out of the pen. “My, my. This one is so very feisty. I’ll have to see if it’s available.”

“Can I get your name, please,” Dean asked.

The woman lazily rolled a shoulder. How she was wearing such a tight dress and high heels without a jacket was beyond Dean, but he decided not to complain when it gave him such a great view of her boobs.

“Bela Talbot,” she said, speaking easily. “I’m pleased to meet you…”

“Dean Winchester,” Dean said. “Perhaps you should go out to the main courtyard and speak to the head of the stables there. He’s talking to my partner.”

“He?” Bela asked, a gleam coming into her eyes. “Why, has Miss Milton finally been replaced? I thought that since she’d been driving this place into bankruptcy for years, it would have to happen eventually. Well, I’ll have to go and introduce myself, won’t I? Farewell, Mr Winchester…” She looked him up and down as she walked past him, and Dean tried not to feel like a piece of meat she was eyeing up. He was suddenly quite glad that his butterfly and decided to remain in his hair for the conversation; her lynx looked like it wanted to pounce on him.

Dean shook his head as she turned the corner out of his sight. What a strange woman. She was probably one of the ones who Anna had refused to sell to – she looked rich enough to be in the dragon racing business. Although the tid bit that she had dropped about Anna running the stables into bankruptcy was interesting. Perhaps that had something to do with her murder.

He ducked under the stable that had been blowing fire, and continued on, seeing nothing unusual. Turning a corner, he found himself back in the large courtyard that had earlier been filled with numerous aegyl, as well as Castiel and Charlie. It stood empty now, and Dean pursed his lips. It was entirely possible that Charlie had just finished questioning Castiel and had left to try and find him, or Castiel had asked they go somewhere so that he could do something while they talked. Dean just worried, that’s all. It was times like this that he wished that he had a phone that would work around his magic. They should install _that_ feature onto the new iWhatever 47.

When Dean went to the exit though, Charlie’s car was still there. She was probably poking around the stables, trying to find more clues. Dean went back to the plaza and focused on the staff in his hand – it began to smoke blue tendrils of steam that eventually covered the cobblestones in the whole courtyard. “ _Ostende mihi praeterita_ ,” he muttered, and ghostly blue figures rose from the smoke. He was standing near where Castiel and Charlie had been, so their figures appeared clearer than others. They stood for a while more before Charlie moved off towards where Dean had gone. Castiel stood still for a moment before going to one of the aegyl hovering around in indistinct shapes with masses of blue cloud for wings. The blue aegyl moved to the other groups of aegyl, and soon enough Castiel was the only person standing in the courtyard. Just as he was about to move, another blue figure came out onto the courtyard. As it came closer, it resolved itself into an image of Bela. Dean could tell by their body language that they didn’t like each other, and not for the first time, he wished that this spell came with sound as well as pictures.

The two of them started walking towards where Dean knew the offices were, and the spell fizzled out as the magic he had put into it ran out. Dean grimaced as he looked towards the offices, but turned to where Charlie had gone, knowing that he needed to find his partner first. They had to compare notes and talk about what they’d found before they talked to anyone else. Charlie and himself had always been able to read each other fairly well, but that didn’t usually translate to complex ideas and theories.

A few corridors down, and Dean spotted Charlie walking back towards him. Her steps quickened when she spotted him, and Dean met her in the middle of a longer hall, where no one could come across them without them seeing them first.

“I was just trying to find you,” Charlie groused. “I finished questioning Castiel. So far, he’s the most suspicious one, if you ask me – he was here, he doesn’t have an alibi, and now he’s the head of the Flightcentre. Basic motive 101.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking that too. Did you get to question many other people yesterday?”

Charlie half growled. “All these aegyl are getting on my nerves. I mean, shove me in a room full of faeries any day. At least I can half understand them. All of the people here are so quiet and they speak in riddles if they have anything to say at all. That Castiel was probably the most human of any that I’ve met. The gist of it is ‘We loved Anna, we’re sad that she’s gone, the dragons are even sadder that she’s gone.’”

Dean scratched his head, sorting through the facts in his head. “Have you heard anything from the coroner?”

“Dead silence,” Charlie huffed, her voice showing what she felt about that. “Can’t they do anything fast?”

“You know they don’t like cases where magic’s involved,” Dean tried to console her, but she just waved it off.

“Do you think _I_ like cases where I don’t know who could rip me in half with a few words? No offence.”

“I promise I won’t ever rip you in half with a few words,” Dean said solemnly. Just as Charlie began to relax, he continued. “That would need a paragraph of words, at least.”

“Ahh, you’re such a jerk!” Charlie said, punching his shoulder.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Look, I think we need to talk to Castiel again about what this lady said. I found her walking around the stables, and I think she wanted to buy dragons off Anna. She said that Anna was running this place to bankruptcy.”

“Huh,” Charlie said, eyes going distant as she ran figures through her head. “Look, these dragons can’t be cheap to keep up, even at the motza they sell for. It’s possible. Do you know where she went?”

“Yeah,” Dean said, turning back to the courtyard. “Let’s go.”

The blue mist had entirely evaporated by the time they got to the courtyard, and Dean took the exit that Castiel and Bela had. There weren’t any stables here, just storage rooms, and a few older aegyl who were sorting items and doing inventory. The ground eventually gave way to wooden boards and nice doors, away from where a stray fireball could burn the whole place to tinders before you could say ‘whoops.’

Dean stopped outside the door that said **Head Management _._** He didn’t need any magic to hear the raised voices on the other side of the door.

Charlie cocked her head at him and Dean shrugged. His magic wasn’t the delicate kind used for eavesdropping – that was for wizards with yellow and black spirits. His blue spirit, the rarest colour, denoted his affiliation for loud explosions.

The door opened after a few more seconds, and Bela stormed out, not a hair out of place despite the scowl twisting her face. Dean took a step back as she brushed past him, her lynx spitting at him as she did so. Castiel came to the doorway to watch her leave, looking very tired. His eyes lighted on Dean, and in the relative darkness of the hall, Dean saw his eyes glow for half a second. Castiel shook his head and then put a hand through his hair, his wings rustling softly.

“Officers. My apologies. Some customers can be very… pushy when it comes to their demands. Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?”

“Yes,” Dean said, dragging Castiel’s attention to him. The aegyl had been looking at Charlie, clearly expecting her to ask any questions. “That was Bela Talbot, am I right?”

Castiel hesitated before answering. “Let’s walk. I need to make sure the dragons aren’t too grief-ill.”

Castiel began moving back towards the stables. Dean looked at Charlie, who shrugged. They’d be able to question him either way, and this way they might gain some more insight into Castiel’s actions and motives.

The pair followed Castiel as he walked. “Miss Talbot is a potential customer, yes. However, Novak Flightcentre has not sold to her in the nine years that she’s been trying to buy. That’s mostly because of Anna – she wanted nothing to do with her.” Castiel paused as they walked past some aegyls sorting equipment. “Bela is very outspoken against us for this reason, but since it is well known that we produce the best dragons in Illinois and even the best on the Eastern Coast, which is not a light thing to say, we hardly suffer from her opinions. Even though Bela works for Hellridge Co, she doesn’t have that much political swing in Chicago, because she doesn’t win races. And she knows that the reason she doesn’t win races is because we don’t sell to her. She’s very bitter about that.”

Castiel had paused outside of a stable, and he looked in on the dragon inside with a fond expression on his face. Dean heard a soft snuffling, and Castiel beckoned him over.

“She doesn’t mind human magic. You can look if you want.”

Dean hesitated for a moment before taking several steps closer. This close, he could smell the earthy scent of Castiel’s wings and see how they took on an iridescent shine at certain angles. He felt the aegyl’s eyes on him, so he turned to look into the pen, wondering what type of dragon would be in there.

A soft white curled beauty regarded him intelligently. Sleeping in prone forms on and around her were several young dragonlings, all of which were sound asleep. Cream horns curled from her head to protect her neck, and her wings were folded neatly on either side of her, feathers iridescent.

Dean felt a smile twitch the corner of his mouth slightly. He cleared his throat and ignored Charlie’s tangible amusement.

“She looks healthy,” Dean said, which he then wanted to kick himself for. What a stupid thing to say.

“She is,” Castiel said lowly, making Dean lean in slightly to be able to hear him. Castiel’s eyes were fixed on him, and in the darkness of the stables, he could see that they were glowing a very soft blue. He could have sworn that they hadn’t been doing that a second ago. “Thank you. She says that your magic is not corrupt as some humes are. It is not often that she looks upon a human with anything but distaste; you should be honoured.”

Dean glanced at the large dragon as a curl of smoke came out of one nostril.

“She likes you.”

Dean wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

~

Castiel watched as the hume and his dragon evaluated each other. Grace eventually flipped her tail and nosed at one of her new dragonlings.

_He’ll do, brother. His magic is not full of slime and I like his soul-spirit._

Said soul-spirit was fluttering around Dean’s head. The blue butterfly had captured Castiel’s attention from the start, although he had tried not to show it. As soon as he’d smelled the wizard he knew that something would be between them, and every second that Dean didn’t step away it was harder to not touch him with his wing; something highly inappropriate for him to do to a police officer. Even if said police officer was getting his wings hot.

Castiel cursed silently as a quick breeze wafted Dean’s scent towards him. He could feel Grace’s amusement in the back of his mind as she tried not to laugh at him. Of course his mating instinct would lead him towards a hume. After all, he wasn’t disgraced enough already in his father’s eyes.

Castiel resisted the urge to lick his lips as Dean looked at him again. He blamed the trailing end of the mating season for his twitching feathers as he turned his back to them.

Dean and Charlie followed him as he kept walking, checking on all the members in this wing of the Flightcentre. The dragons were not content, not eating, and stubbornly blowing fire at anyone who tried to come in and groom them. Castiel felt his eyebrows pinch together as he observed them.

“Miss Talbot had some interesting things to say when I encountered her earlier,” Dean said. Castiel liked the way it sounded, rough over his skin. He wondered if his palms would feel the same way. He refused to look back as he answered.

“Please do not listen to what she has to say. As I said earlier, all she is interested in is slandering the Flightcentre.”

“She said that Anna had driven this place to bankruptcy,” Dean continued, relentless. Castiel’s wings tightened of their own accord.

“That is a delicate subject,” he said, shoving down the feeling of aching despair and guilt when someone mentioned Anna. “But she is on the right track. We will have to make numerous sales that Anna would have kept refusing to get back to where we should be as a business.” There was so much to do after Anna’s death, and he didn’t need the two detectives poking around and finding things they wouldn’t agree with.

Castiel attempted to ignore Uriel when they turned and he saw him, but the other aegyl offered him no such recourse.

“Castiel!” Uriel called. “I need to discuss something with you.”

Castiel tried not to flare his feathers over the disrespectful tone that Uriel was using. He had the authority to fire him now, but to do so would look like he was putting his personal agenda above his business one, and would not earn him the favour of anyone but Grace. His dragon hated Uriel almost as much as Castiel did.

“I am talking with the detectives right now, Uriel,” Castiel said as he stopped, acutely aware of Dean’s eyes on him. “We will have to speak later.”

“Detectives, hmm?” Uriel asked, looking over his shoulder to the two humes. “Don’t look like much to me. Are you supposed to be the ones who are finding out who killed Anna?”

“We’re in charge of the investigation, yes,” Dean answered, tone clipped. He had already decided that Uriel was more trouble than he was worth, which Castiel agreed with wholeheartedly.

“Well, I need to talk to Castiel about my new duties,” Uriel said, disregarding them completely.

“Did you get promoted as well?” Charlie asked.

“Uriel will now be completing my old job,” Castiel said lowly. “We will talk later, Uriel.”

“What, because you’re finally in the big chair, you think you can order me around?” Uriel sneered, flicking his light gold wings at Castiel disdainfully.

“I think that I can,” Castiel told him, and Uriel shook his head.

“Shouldn’t you be looking for suspects? Or is that what you’re doing,” Uriel leered, leaning forward slightly. “Did you know that Anna and our dear Castiel were arguing viciously for days before her death? Come on, Cassie. Everyone is thinking it. Did you kill poor Anna?”

“I think that you have no ground to be making such baseless accusations,” Castiel said, teeth gritted. He ignored how his throat closed for a moment as he choked down a ball of emotion. “Anna and I were disagreeing over personal things, which had nothing to do with our work life. Cousins tend to do that.”

Uriel rolled his eyes and then turned his back on them. Castiel walked past and didn’t say anything until they were out of earshot.

“My apologies; Uriel is never easy to work with on the best of days. There was no love lost between him and Anna, and he doesn’t grieve with the rest of the flock.”

“You didn’t mention that you and Milton were related,” Charlie said. Castiel shrugged one shoulder.

“Most aegyl are related in some form. It hardly matters, most of the time.”

“What were you arguing about?”

Castiel swallowed before he answered Dean’s question. “My niece, Claire, wanted to come here. Anna said that she was too old, and I said that she was only too old if Anna would not let her come. I’ve already sent for her, so that she can begin her education here immediately.”

He felt the interest of the two officers behind him, so he made for the main courtyard where he would have more luck shaking them off. “My apologies once more, but I must start work; with Anna gone, there is much that I need to do. Please feel free to come and ask any questions of any of the staff if you think it will aid your investigation.” He came out onto the courtyard and turned to face Dean, pushing aside the feeling of his knees wobbling when the hume took a step closer. Oh dear. He was going to have to go and collect himself after Dean was gone.

“Very well,” Dean was saying. “We’ll be back. We’ll see you then.”

His butterfly followed around his head as both of them walked towards the gates. Castiel hurried towards his _(Anna’s)_ office and closed the door behind him, sinking down to the floor. He hadn’t gone near where Anna had… had… He couldn’t stand the guilt of what he… what had happened.

Castiel sucked a deep breath in and put his head in his hands. The whole flock was relying on him now. He couldn’t break down over Anna’s death.

Not yet.

~

Krissy was sitting at his desk when they arrived back at the precinct. She still looked nervous, but it wasn’t the same as before, so Dean relaxed a little. She would be fine here. Annie probably already liked her, and the people who didn’t like wizards here would tone it down with her – she was a girl, and underage. She’d gain confidence here before they really started coming down on her.

“Captain said that I’m under your supervision until she thinks I can investigate on my own,” Krissy said nervously, twisting a piece of her hair around her finger. “Which I wanted to ask about. Don’t the aegyl have their own police force and everything? Why are we investigating this?”

“The Clan Leader asked for our assistance. Although, Charlie didn’t see fit to inform me of that until we were at the crime scene.” He sighed. “Because the Flightcente is one of the most lucrative assets for the Novak Clan, they want it all public and above board so it doesn’t look like they’re hiding anything. That, and the fact that they don’t have the authority to persecute anyone who isn’t an aegyl. Most cases get handed over to us anyway, but don’t be surprised if aegyl secret police show up demanding to get let in on the investigation.”

Krissy frowned. “But you’ll be there to watch out for me, yeah? So I don’t really have to worry about that. I can use my magic to help however and we’ll find the guy who did this.”

Krissy was in a far better situation than what had happened to him. He’d been shoved under the watch of an older inspector, told to watch how to do things, was shipped off to the training academy for police for six months, all the while gleaning how to use his magic in this new way. He’d had limited resources to turn to while he’d been learning, so Krissy would have it easier than him.

“Your magic isn’t usually used in this context,” Dean said in response. “Mine is a much better tool.”

Krissy looked at her white cat, curled asleep on Dean’s desk. “This has got to do with what you were teaching me a few weeks ago, right? The colours of your spirit?”

“Yeah,” Dean said, pulling a chair from another desk and sitting down. “You’ve got white; that’s transformation and transportation. Useful stuff, but not really for catching criminals.”

“I’ve only ever seen one other blue spirit,” Krissy said, staring at his butterfly. “What’s that?”

“Well, like all magic, blue usually runs in bloodlines,” Dean told her. “My mother was blue. Blue tends to denote destructive abilities, which are useful when you’re chasing people who don’t like to be caught, and we usually have some control over time – mine mostly consists of an ability to reconstruct events that happened in a particular area, or from a strong memory.” That was what he had used to find where Charlie had gone earlier today; however, it had a time limit on it, and could only really be used for a maximum of two hours in the past. Even then, most of the time it came out blurry and indecipherable unless Dean had been to the area before or had known one of the people he was depicting.

“Cool,” Krissy said, smiling. Dean envied her ability to put aside things; she was probably trapped into working here for the rest of her life, and yet she was still smiling. “There are other colours, though, right?”

“Course,” Dean told her. “There are eight base colours that everyone draws from. See how my butterfly has black swirls on its wings? They’re from my dad, who has a black spirit. So I’ve got some sensing abilities as well. Black spirits can often use telepathy as well, but I mustn’t have gotten any of that, because I’ve never heard someone’s thoughts unless they were smashed.”

“That’s three,” Krissy said. “There’s yellow and purple and red and green, right? What’s the eighth one?”

“Gold,” Dean said, “Which is often taken for yellow. They’re closely related; yellow spirits are good with illusions and wards, while gold spirits forge protective magics and binding spells. Red is fire and control over temperature, purple is invisibility and levitation, and green is healing and constructive magics, yeah? You need to know all this Krissy. It’s important.”

Krissy sighed. “Yeah, I know. It’s just a lot of stuff, alright? It’s not just that, it’s those massive books you gave me to read, and the theory is so boring when I can just wave my hand and I can turn a rock into a rose.”

Dean frowned at her. “That’s taking the easy option, Krissy. Magic isn’t something that you can learn overnight, and it isn’t something that you can just naturally acquire. You need to work at it.”

“I am,” Krissy protested. “It just takes time.”

Dean crooked a smile at her. “Most things do, squirt. That’s life.”

Krissy sighed.

“I want you to go and introduce yourself to everyone now, okay? I need to talk to Charlie about the case. When you’re done, I’ll brief you, and you can tag along to see what happens, yeah?”

Krissy nodded happily and bounded off. Dean put his hands over his eyes for a second before moving his chair so that he could look at the files on his desk. The coroner’s report was still nowhere to be found, and until then, he couldn’t ask anything about the weapon. The magic that he’d felt at the crime scene was another clue, but not something that he could write down. He’d know if the same wizard cast a spell, but until then he couldn’t trace it back to them. He’d scoured the room that Anna had been killed in, but there was no evidence of any ritual items that he could chase up. Either none had been used, or the killer had taken them with them after they had killed Anna, which was much more likely. He didn’t want to think of the power that a wizard would have to have to hold an aegyl down as they died without any ritual items to help them.

That just raised another host of questions. How long had they been lying in wait for Anna? Did Anna follow them to the murder site? Did she know her killer? How did the killer get into the Flightcentre in the first place?

Charlie sat down on the chair that Krissy had vacated and put her feet up on his desk. “You got any inspiring thoughts?”

Dean shook his head. “Not really. We don’t have any real evidence against Castiel besides the fact that he doesn’t have an alibi and he got Anna’s job. We’re going to need more to go on before we do anything.”

Charlie tapped her fingers on his desk. “What about that Uriel guy? Seemed like an asshole, and he got promoted as well as Castiel. Castiel said that they didn’t like each other very much.”

“Uriel also said that Castiel and Anna were fighting,” Dean reminded her. “We don’t have enough to go on just yet. Has the coroner said anything yet?”

“I talked to him just before I came here,” Charlie said. “He’s going to write up the prelim report tomorrow, but he told me that you were right; Anna bled out. He also said that it was done with some kind of long and thin knife, but he was still looking into it. You have any leads on the magic that was used?"

Dean grimaced. “There was no physical remnants from whatever spell they used, which there must have been. It would have taken a while for Anna to bleed out, and to anchor a spell like that you need grounding agents. They must have taken them with them. Did the crime scene techs come up with anything?”

“There was a feather at the scene,” Charlie said. “Gold. But the entire place is overrun with aegyl, so that doesn’t mean much.”

“They could have been involved,” Dean said. “Or they could have been an accomplice, or seen something. There’s a way to match feathers with their origin, isn’t there?”

“Course,” Charlie scoffed. “Easy. But we need a sample from all the aegyls with gold wings. And I don’t see them ripping out their feathers for us just because we asked them to.”

“Well Castiel has black wings,” Dean said. “Uriel had gold wings though.”

“So did a lot of other aegyls. Gold seemed like a pretty common colour.”

“Most of them have white wings though,” Dean replied. “Anna did, so it can’t be hers. We should still look into it.”

Charlie nodded. “Yeah, okay. The techs also found about a billion different fingerprints, so it’s going to be a bitch going through all of them, let alone matching them to anyone. It was a storeroom, so I think it’s a dead end there – we don’t even have any records of aegyl fingerprints in our database.”

Dean grimaced. “Yeah, okay. We should still document them all though. Never know when the prints of a few aegyl will come in handy.”

Charlie nodded her acceptance. “Yeah, okay. So uh… Castiel asked me if you liked dudes. I think he’s into you.”

If Dean had been drinking something, it would have gone everywhere. “He _what?_ What did you tell him?”

“I told him you did, duh,” Charlie said, swinging around in his chair. “You don’t get out enough. If Castiel isn’t our guy, you should def chat him up.”

“And if he is?” Dean bit out, crossing his arms.

Charlie shrugged. “Then I think that the Universe is seriously against you. Really.”

“I’m going to find Krissy, then I’m heading home,” Dean told her, running a hand through his hair. “I’ll see you tomorrow. And _don’t_ tell anyone about that!”

Charlie’s laughter followed him as he stalked towards the door.

~

Krissy was tagging along at his heels as he walked through the doors to the library. Dean nodded at the woman behind the counter as she peered at him from behind her glasses. Krissy looked at the dusty shelves with a slight frown on her face.

“Isn’t this… the public library?”  She asked. Dean noticed that even though there was a touch of distaste in her voice, she still kept her voice quiet.

“Hmm,” Dean said, just as quietly. “This is the human section, yes. However, there’s a section for dwarves, faeries, aegyls and wizards.”

“Is that where we’re going?” Krissy asked, a touch of excitement entering her voice. “I didn’t know that there was a wizard library here.”

“It’s only for Guild members,” Dean told her. “While there aren’t a lot of wizards that aren’t in the Guild, only people who have a membership can enter here. That’s why I told you to bring your cloak this morning.”

In the absence of most modern ways of communicating, Dean had to get… creative about how he sent messages to people. His magic didn’t let him change the shape of things, which is what Krissy did with her messages – she wrote them out, changed them into cats and sent them off towards Dean’s apartment. Dean didn’t have that luxury, so when he’d been younger, he’d signed a deal with one of the lesser demons around, and had exchanged a griffon’s heart, a ray of sunshine and three conch shells for a black raven. The raven could talk, but mostly restricted herself to sassy comments and tried to sneak into Dean’s business more often than not. Dean had called her Chevy after she refused to give him her name, and while she’d fluffed her feathers up about it, she’d seemed pleased. Chevy ran his messages to wherever he wanted, but often didn’t bring anything back unless the recipient had something on hand in under thirteen seconds.

“Your raven freaks me out,” Krissy grumbled. “I need a roommate. I’m minding my own business, and then I hear this tapping on the window. Scares me every time.”

“Ah, you’ll get over her soon enough,” Dean said. “Just don’t tell her that, or she’ll get pissy.”

They arrived in front of a door that was clearly labelled **NO ACCESS**. Dean pushed it open and Krissy followed after a second of hesitation. After a grey concrete hallway, they entered another sitting room, with another secretary. This one had a gold cricket jumping around his desk, which jumped around a bit more frantically when Dean pushed open the door.

“Registration,” the man said, clearly not paying attention to them. Dean waved his hand over the softly glowing rock on his desk. The rock flared silver grey for a second before subsiding. Dean stepped back and Krissy copied him, waving her head gingerly. The rock glinted white, and the secretary waved them in, still focused on whatever he was reading.

Dean went through the next door, feeling a ripple as he passed through a ward. Krissy shivered as she went through it.

“So why are we here?” Krissy asked him, craning her neck so she could see what went on.

Really, it was like the library in the normal human section; just with a few different touches. Dean didn’t think that they had books randomly floating around or people who sneezed purple magic outside, but hey. Anything was possible.

“A few reasons. One, I wanted to introduce you to the library. If you’ve got any general questions about wizards, magic or the magical world, here is the place to find them. The library in Chicago is envied across America. Two, I need to look up types of spells that could have been binding Anna. If I can narrow that down, then I can start on a list of suspects. And three, you’re going to look into any book that contains anything on aegyl life or whatever, to see if you can come up with anything interesting. Got it?”

Krissy sighed. “So I’m going to study for you? Great.”

“There’s a lot worse things you could be doing, squirt,” Dean told her, resisting the urge to ruffle her hair. “And it’s not like it’s that hard. This is a _magical_ library, after all.”

Krissy began to smile. “Yeah?”

Dean passed a few tables with people behind them, with spirits ranging from ferrets to fish to finches. While the colours varied wildly, most gold and yellow, he could still see a disproportionate amount of green spirits. Green made up about nine percent of the entire wizard population, and usually denoted healing magic – however, like doctors that didn’t use magic, their path to competently using their Talent involved a lot of study. A lot of that study occurred here in the library, since most wizards shorted out anything technologically advanced – anything invented in the 1920s or earlier was usually okay. The older it was, the better it worked. Dean, and the extended magical community, had absolutely no idea why.

Dean walked through a few halls, down some steps and then out into a large, open room with the floor cut out in the centre, so you could see down to the level below. Krissy narrowed her eyes when she picked out the details of the room below them.

“Hey, isn’t that where we came in? But we went down steps and didn’t double back…” Krissy’s voice faded away and Dean tried not to laugh at the face she was pulling.

“It’s magic, Krissy. Like I’ve told you, things aren’t always as they seem.”

Krissy looked like she was getting a headache as they walked around the perimeter of the open space. There was one part that jutted out slightly, and Dean stopped there. There was already a wizard using the catalogue, so he waited for a few seconds until a book floated up from the depths of the library to come to rest in her hands. Dean nodded at her as she stepped down, and then turned to Krissy. “Your turn, squirt.”

Krissy pulled a face at the nickname but took a hesitant step towards the pedestal. As soon as she stepped up, there was a flurry of pages, and several books came shooting towards her. She caught one straight in the chest and went down with an ‘oomph.’

Dean couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up from inside him as the still scowling and now slightly terrified young wizard in front of him was bombarded with more books. They slapped against her sides, demanding to be picked up. Dean watched as she swiped one out of the air, then missed another two. He caught one to stop it from colliding with the back of her head, and then gave it to her when she’d managed to pile the rest up in her arms. Krissy looked at the book he was holding out suspiciously, but Dean couldn’t feel the tingle of magic around it anymore. Once again, it was just a book.

Krissy took it from him and read the cover aloud. “ _Magical Theory for Beginners: A Guide for Your First Steps in the Magical World._ Seriously?”

“You asked about the library, and the library heard,” Dean told her. He looked down the spines of the books she held and nodded to himself. “I’m going to be here a while, so you should have a chance to get started on those.”

“What?” Krissy asked, staring at the thick books she was holding in horror.

“I’ve let you mostly run free while being under my wing. That’s just some light reading. Nothing too complicated.” Krissy was still staring at the books in despair. He rolled his eyes but added a bit of honey. “And there’s a book that I know that deals about basic transformation spells that should mean that you get a boost in how easily you change things.”

Krissy perked up at that. Dean stepped onto the pedestal, and the book he was thinking about flew into his hand, landing neatly.

“Hey, how come it didn’t assault you?” Krissy complained, scowling at the book as he gave it to her.

“You’ll learn to navigate the library in time,” Dean told her. “Now go and find an alcove so you can start reading.”

Krissy rolled her eyes but turned around to go and hunt for a place to sit. Dean tried not to smile as he turned back to the alcove.

The wood around him hummed with magic as he stepped up. Dean took a deep breath in and exhaled, letting the magical currents that whispered at the edge of his skin flutter around him, following his butterfly as it danced. He knew the type of magic that had been used to kill Anna, even if he didn’t want to talk about it. Blood magic. Normal magic couldn’t be used in the way that it had to kill Anna. Magic depended on a person’s will, as well as the experience they had casting magic and the knowledge they possessed of their craft. Raw power was very rarely used to solve problems because there were so few people that did have such a strong natural connection to the magic of the world. Dean did, but he tried not to abuse it, and he made efforts to make sure that no one found out that he had such strong magic. Krissy had a strong connection as well, and if he could convince her of the benefits of reading and learning, then she would go a long way, very quickly. He just had to get her over that first hurdle.

Blood magic used the sacrifice of life to strengthen a person’s connection to the natural magic running through the world – blood being the greatest thing that natural magic used, as it has the magic of _life_ in it. Natural magic could take several forms, but in Chicago, it mainly consisted of the convergence of ley lines that ran into each other in the Great Lakes. Chicago was close enough that a little blood magic could tap you into one of the many ley lines there, giving a whole lot of magic for relatively little work. Natural magic came in other forms as well – lightning storms were laced with strong magic, as were most natural disasters. The ocean was an easy place to find magic. In some places where magical creatures like faeries or aegyls had resided for a long time, there was often an abundance of magic. But the ley lines were the strongest; if you knew how to get to them.

Maps of the ley lines were rare, but Dean tried thinking of it anyway. The magic of the library shimmered for a few seconds before spitting out a thin booklet. Dean grabbed it and then tried to bring up some of the books on blood magic that weren’t in the restricted section. He got a smattering of thin and old tomes, none of which looked like they’d be any help. He probably had better in his own personal library. Dean pursed his lips and then thought of the sticky residue he’d felt from the spell, and got hit in the chest by a dusty old book. He put it on his pile and ceded his place to a young wizard who was waiting behind him, her purple otter swimming through the air above her head.

He found a desk to himself and started leafing through the books the library gave him, looking for anything that might help him with the case. The books on blood magic were dumped quickly, and the one that was about ley lines offered little insight as to the positioning of them throughout the city.

With the majority of his books useless, Dean reluctantly turned his attention towards the dusty tome. Opening it didn’t make him cough like he’d suspected it might, and he frowned slightly. Now that he was looking, there were finger marks in the dust, and several sections of the book looked like they had been used recently.

He turned to the first few pages that looked like they’d been read, and found himself immersed in a complicated binding ritual. The strength of it alarmed him, and he turned back to the cover to check how the library had categorised it.

The small, red **restricted** in the front of the cover made his heart beat kick up. How had a restricted book gotten into the normal archives? It took a _very_ good reason to be allowed access to the restricted parts of the library. The books there weren’t for public consumption for a reason: most of them dealt with blood magic or black magic. The information inside was something that shouldn’t be given out lightly to anyone, no matter why they wanted it.

You had to go through a laborious process to request an item from the restricted section, which could take up to a year for all of the proper authorities to approve, if it was approved at all. However, Dean _had_ heard of the library giving out the information if it felt like it was needed. It just never happened.

He swallowed and went back to the page with the binding ritual on it. Why had the library given him this book? Could someone have retrieved it without the proper guidelines and then put it back in general storage? No, the library would have taken it back to the restricted section, and he was fairly certain that it was impossible to navigate the wards on the library to get access without permission in the first place. So why give it to him?

He hadn’t told the entire truth to Krissy earlier when she’d asked about the magic. Certainly, the library was magical, but it was _old_ magic, the same type that ran through Stonehenge to protect the Guild. Dean was fairly certain that it had some sort of consciousness, however a library managed to do that. It protected the books itself, which was why the largest collection of restricted books on the planet was here. Why give the book to him? The library couldn’t know that he was the one investigating why Anna had been killed with a binding ritual like the one he was looking at.

Balance, a voice whispered by his ear. Dean flinched and looked around, even though he recognised the touch of a telepath when he felt it. John hadn’t kept out of his thoughts when he was younger, forcing Dean to build an instinctive wall to guard against the thoughts of others. Dean’s father was one of the most accomplished telepaths that he knew, and he couldn’t get past Dean’s walls. The voice that had whispered beside him had brushed past them like they didn’t exist.

Dean swallowed and leaned over the book, certain that he would find some sort of answer in its pages, and as equally sure that he would only get to see the book once.

~

Charlie slammed a sheath of papers down on his desk. Dean looked up from his scribbled notes on the binding ritual to stare at her.

“The coroner’s report,” Charlie told him. Dean dropped his pen and grabbed the papers, shuffling through them for the page that he wanted. Charlie grimaced as he did so. “Dean. The murder weapon.”

Dean paused and looked up at her, expectant. Charlie sighed. “It’s an aegyl blade.”

Dean leaned back in his chair looking up at the ceiling. Well, shit. And aegyl blade. That meant that another aegyl had to be at fault. Only an aegyl could manifest their blade and wield it, which meant that this case just took on a completely new angle.

“We have to go back to the Flightcentre,” Dean said. Charlie looked like something had just died in her favourite pair of boots.

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

Dean grabbed his jacket and then walked through the precinct. Krissy was sitting in the common room, struggling through police reports. Dean’d tasked her with getting used to the format and layout of the reports, so she could write her own.

“Krissy,” Dean said. Krissy looked up in relief.

“We’re leaving?” She bounced to her feet and shoved the reports she was reading back in their folder.

“Yeah,” Charlie told her. “Grab your coat and your best poker face, because we’re about to ask some of the most awkward questions possible.”

Krissy lowered her eyebrows in confusion, but she followed them out anyway.

~

An aegyl scurried away towards the admin buildings as soon as Dean, Charlie and Krissy got out of the car. Dean kept an eye on the aegyl as he disappeared. Krissy didn’t look nervous, but her cat was winding its way around her legs in a way that spoke of unease.

Dean took a steadying breath and took the first step forward. As he passed under the arc of the gate, his skin tingled in warning. He stopped abruptly, and Charlie, a step behind him, paused. Krissy stumbled but didn’t breach the ward that was protecting the property.

Dean leaned forward slightly, testing the parameters of the ward. It didn’t seem like hostile magic, more like it was just… watching.

He stepped through it, feeling it pass over him harmlessly. His butterfly was stuck on the other side of it, fluttering fruitlessly, only to pop through the barrier a second later. Charlie followed, not being able to sense the magic that he had stopped for, just trusting him. Krissy stepped forward gingerly after Charlie passed through, looking uncomfortable at the foreign magic.

“What was that?” Krissy hissed. Dean looked over at her.

“Aegyl magic,” he told her. “They build their wards differently to ours. That’s why it felt odd.”

“Aegyl magic?” Charlie questioned lowly. “I thought I felt… something.”

Like most humans, Charlie usually was oblivious to magic. Unless she could see it, the majority of the time she didn’t realise it was there.

“They’re kicking up their security,” Dean reasoned, not moving from where he was standing. If they’d put a ward up, they wouldn’t like the humans wandering around without supervision. Castiel would likely come and talk to them sooner rather than later.

“We have the explicit permission from their Clan Leader to be here and investigate this,” Charlie reminded him. “We shouldn’t have to worry about any aegyl trying to kick us out… right?”

“Perhaps,” Dean told her. “They can revoke permission, if they want, and we’ve proven that an aegyl committed the crime. They prefer to punish their own, rather than having them go through our system.”

“You said on the way here that the dead aegyl was killed with an aegyl blade, right?” Krissy was biting her lip.

“Anna,” Dean reminded her. “Victim’s name was Anna. Gotta get your facts straight Krissy. Can’t mess things like that up.”

Krissy nodded sharply. The door to the courtyard opened, and Dean watched as Castiel walked through and turned towards them. The aegyl’s wings were ruffled, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

“Detectives,” he greeted. Even his voice sounded tired.

“Castiel,” Dean replied. “We have questions; perhaps we could go somewhere more private?”

Castiel grimaced. “Of course. Please, follow me to my office.” Dean took a breath in and stepped through the ward – it sluiced over his skin, but didn’t do anything besides that. He breathed out his stress in a sigh.

They followed the aegyl across the courtyard and into the buildings where the dragons didn’t come as often, as evidenced by the abundance of wood. Castiel opened a door and sat down in a chair behind a desk.

“How can I help you?”

“The official report on Anna’s death was finished and given to us this morning,” Dean said. There were chairs, but he hadn’t sat down, and neither had Krissy or Charlie. “We know what the murder weapon is.”

Cas rubbed his hands over his forehead. “Let me guess. An aegyl blade.”

Dean’s lack of rebuttal was apparently enough to serve as a confirmation for Castiel. He sighed and leaned back in his chair – or at least, as much as he could. The chair didn’t have a high back, allowing for his wings to sit comfortably without having to try to fold awkwardly around the back of the chair.

“This complicates matters, I suppose,” Castiel continued. “All aegyl blades are the same, design wise, expect for Clan Leaders. It is the magic inside each one that distinguishes it from another.”

Dean nodded. “There wasn’t enough residue from the blade that we can trace it that way. However, it does mean that an aegyl committed the crime. We’re going to need lists of everyone who was here within twenty hour hours of Anna’s death, as well as anyone you know who can cast spells.”

Castiel looked at him sharply. “I will not ask the aegyl under my care to divulge their status as a magi. And as even I do not know who has the power to wield either Energy, I cannot tell you who may have been involved.”

Dean tapped a finger on his leg slowly. “Alright. However, I’d like to ask whether you can use magic, Castiel.”

Castiel grimaced, and his wings twitched slightly. “No, I cannot. I can only do what any aegyl can – I possess no magical talent of my own.”

Huh. They were going to have to think that over. If Castiel was telling the truth, it meant that he couldn’t have killed Anna – at least, he couldn’t have killed her by himself.

Charlie had just opened her mouth to ask another question when Dean heard shouting from outside. Charlie shot a look at him and Dean shrugged slightly as the shouting grew louder and closer.

“… do what I want! Now get out of my way!”

The door to Castiel’s office slammed open, and Dean turned to see the woman – Bela – who was here the last time that he had been here. Her hair was dishevelled, and there was a young female aegyl behind her, who had obviously tried and failed to keep her out of Castiel’s office.

“What is the meaning of this?” Bela growled, stalking up to Castiel’s desk and slamming a piece of paper down on it. Dean leaned in a bit closer to try and get a look at it, but it just seemed to be an ordinary letter.

“The meaning is clear in the letter,” Castiel said calmly, not moved at the wizard’s obvious wrath. Bela’s lynx jumped onto the Castiel’s table and snarled at him silently.

“My offer is obviously the _best_ out of all of the new deals you are considering!” Bela near screamed. “You cannot reject me like the whore who was here before you!”

“I would warn you to be more respectful of my cousin,” Castiel said, voice suddenly hard. “You are reused because of the terrible conditions that you put your dragons under. It is more than enough reason to not sell to you.”

Bela stood, furious, for a solid five seconds before storming out and slamming the door behind her. Castiel grimaced at the crumpled letter that she had left on his desk. “My apologies, detectives. Miss Talbot can be very forceful, when she doesn’t get what she wishes.”

“You refused to sell to her again?” Charlie asked.

“Yes,” Castiel said. “I was hoping that you would come down again. I believe that I may have discovered something interesting to your case.”

Dean and Charlie exchanged a look. “What is it?” Dean asked.

Castiel leaned down and opened one of his drawers to retrieve a very large, leather bound book. He opened it up, and Dean saw numerous figures and pictures along with writing.

“This is Anna’s account of our finances,” Castiel told them. “You know about the Flightcentre’s… delicate financial situation. However, after reviewing all of Anna’s purchases and sales, I have concluded that there is no possible way for her to have kept the Flightcentre running on the few dragons that she did sell. There must have been another stream of profit.”

“Why do you think so?” Dean asked, leaning forward to look over the book. It did seem to have more figures in the purchased column than the sold column.

“See this?” Castiel pointed at a singular transaction for ten thousand dollars. There was no description for the sale or how the money had been acquired. “This transaction is repeated several times throughout the book. There are other unexplained cash deposits into the Fightcentre’s account as well. I suspect that Anna was involved with black market dragon trading to keep the Flightcentre with enough money to keep it running without selling the dragons.”

“But you said that she took care of the dragons!” Charlie said, aghast. “Why would she do that?”

“While most dragon trading needs to be fresh, there are some parts of dragons that needn’t be,” Castiel said, voice still calm. Dean could see a tightness around his mouth and his wings were in a position that didn’t look comfortable. He thought that even though Castiel appeared calm, he did not want to be talking about this. He must have held some respect for Anna. “Cast off scales and teeth could have been traded with no ill effects to the dragons that they were taken from.”

Great. Now the whole criminal underworld could have been behind Anna’s death. If she’d refused to give them fresher dragon parts, or if she had wanted to stop trading altogether… But she had been killed with an aegyl blade. There was an aegyl complicit in here, somewhere.

The young aegyl who had tried to stop Bela from coming into Castiel’s office stuck her head through the door. “She’s gone,” she said. “Sorry I couldn’t stop her from getting in here.”

“That’s fine Claire,” Castiel said. “I don’t think anyone could have stopped Bela from getting in here.”

Dean looked between the young aegyl and Castiel. “Hey, Krissy. Could you go through all the areas that are relevant while Charlie and I talk with Castiel? I’m sure Claire would be happy to show you where they are. Gather all the information you can, and then come back and tell Charlie and I what you’ve found, yeah?”

Krissy nodded slightly as Dean looked at Castiel expectantly. The aegyl paused, but then shrugged. “Certainly. Claire, can you show the young detective around?”

Claire nodded and then looked expectantly at Krissy. His apprentice followed the aegyl out the door, her white cat following silently.

“Even if Anna was involved with black market dragon trading, an aegyl was at the very least complicit with her death,” Dean told Castiel. “An aegyl blade was what killed her.”

Castiel nodded gravely. “I doubt that someone who was not accompanied by an aegyl known by the dragons could have gotten past the dragons. They would have noticed that something was wrong and would have made a ruckus. One of the aegyl from the Flightcentre must have been complicit in this.”

Even admitting that made Castiel’s face twist up. He obviously didn’t want to consider think about the most obvious fact from his statement – that someone that he knew and worked at the Flightcentre was involved in Anna’s death.

“Regarding this, may we conduct some interviews of aegyl who were here on the day of Anna’s death?” Dean asked carefully. Castiel wouldn’t tell them who had magic, but he probably would say who was here that day. From that, they could narrow the pool of suspects down.

“Of course,” Castiel sighed. “I just hoped that this could be solved easily. Now it has become so complicated…” He trailed off.

Dean looked at Charlie, who just shrugged. She’d already talked to a few aegyl, but she’d said that they’d been very jumpy about telling her anything, and had very neatly avoided telling her anything. It was typical aegyl behaviour when confronted with something that they didn’t want to talk about, but it was frustrating as anything.

“Feel free to talk to anyone you want,” Castiel said. His tired eyes darkened even more as he ducked his head. “I want to know how this happened as much as you do.”

~

Aegyls _pissed him off_.

Oh, they were all up themselves with their holier than thou expressions and condescending tone of voice. Dean was fairly sure that if Cas hadn’t ordered them to talk to him and Charlie, they would have just ignored them, like the fact that they didn’t have wings meant that they were even worth a second of their time. It was infuriating, and they’d learned next to nothing, other than Cas had started selling more dragons to buyers who Anna had previously vetoed.

The sun was just about to set, and the sky was a livid red.  He and Charlie had agreed to meet up here to go out to grab some dinner, discuss what little they’d found out to try and piece something together. Dean tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for his partner. Krissy was standing beside him, scribbling something on her notebook that she kept with her. She tore the page out and muttered a few words over it. The page glowed white for a quiet second, and then reformed into a small bird. The bird cocked its head and then flapped off. Krissy grinned at it as it left.

“Found someone to talk to besides me?” Dean asked, watching as the transfigured page disappeared into the depths of the stable.

“Just talking to Claire,” Krissy said defensively. “I like her.”

Dean looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Krissy’s eyes were distant, and there was a blush to her cheeks that didn’t have anything to do with the cold in the air. Yeah, she definitely ‘liked’ someone.

Dean was just rolling his eyes when he saw Castiel and Charlie coming out from the stables. Dean turned to them and took a step forward.

That one step probably saved his life.

He felt more than saw something fly into the space where he just was. Dean twitched his body out of the way of the knife, the blade painted black so that it wouldn’t shine in the low light. His heart started beating in his throat, and his breath caught as he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

“Krissy!” He yelled, shoving his apprentice out of the way of another knife. Krissy ducked and looked with wide eyes at the gate, where three people emerged from the deepening shadows. Dragons all around the courtyard started screeching, but Dean blocked that out of his senses to focus on the people. One of them has dark brown wings, but they hovered at the back of the group. All of them were wearing dark cloaks with hoods. A thick mist started to billow out from the aegyl – he was a magi, an aegyl wizard.

The two that stepped forward had spirits dancing around them. One of them was a fiery red bird, swooping with its beak open – some kind of kite, probably. The other had a pale yellow fox snarling next to them.

Dean felt his butterfly flutter a bit quicker than normal and resisted the urge to smack it. Jesus. Why had he gotten a _butterfly_ of all things? They were like, the least threatening creature he could think of.

The kite was glaringly red, but as the duo got closer, Dean could see tinges of purple in its feathers. Great. A fireblaster who could possess some levitation or invisibility skills. Sounded like something someone would come up with just to fuck with him.

Charlie skidded to a stop beside him as the fireblaster chucked a fireball at them.

“Dodge it!” Dean shouted, launching himself out of the way. Well. They obviously weren’t here to be friendly. He could blast at them without having to try and talk to them then.

He rolled to avoid another fireball and came up in a crouch, staff upraised as he spat out a spell.

_“Explodere ferreo canis exprimamus!”_

His energy travelled through the staff, was sharpened by the magic latent in the wood, and focused on a point just between the two wizards. A ripple of force and fire and smoke exploded between them, throwing the two wizards off their feet.

“Krissy, make sure all the aegyl stay out of this,” Dean said, teeth clenched as a rush of energy left him. You’d think making explosions from nowhere would be a tad easier.  “Charlie, don’t forget the aegyl behind them. I can feel magic from him; he’s a aegyl magi. They tend towards elemental magics.”

“I’ve got a gun,” Charlie said cheerfully. She was used to him blowing stuff up and her swooping in to handcuff the bad guys. Dean had a feeling that this time it wouldn’t be so easy.

Charlie darted off to the side, and Dean stalked forward, intent on drawing the attention of the rouge wizards before they hurt any of the aegyls who were running around the perimeter of the courtyard.

The fireblaster got up first, likely more used to things unexpectedly blowing up in his face than his partner. Dean darted forward – the closer you were, surprisingly, the more hesitant they were to chuck fireballs at you. And a staff to the head was just as useful as knocking them out with magic.

The heavy clouds overhead rumbled ominously, and Dean glanced up at them for a second. Lightning was something that an aegyl magi could control – they used elemental magics, which meant he would have to watch the clouds. If the aegyl standing behind the wizards was a lightning user…

Dean swore under his breath as the fireblaster started floating. Great, a wizard that could fly as well as throwing fireballs.

Charlie darted out from the shadows, gun up, yelling something that Dean couldn’t make out from this far away. She shot the wizard with the fox, only to have them disintegrate into the air. An illusion.

Dean saw Krissy moving at the edge of the courtyard as she shoved aegyl back into the corridors as they tried to peer out to see what was happening. Well, it was comforting to know that civilian aegyl would react the same way as civilian humans, at least.

Dean threw himself at the fireblaster’s legs, dragging them both to the ground. He heard a grunt, but his momentary advantage was gone when he was knocked over onto his back as the wizard flipped their positions and raised his fist to strike.

Dean knocked it aside with an elbow and head butted him. “What the hell are you doing?” He yelled as the both of them struggled in a very unwizardlike way for several seconds. Dean punched him and snarled as his staff was knocked out of his hand. Their brawl lasted for another thirty seconds before the fireblaster kicked Dean in the head hard enough for him to see stars and for the wizard to scramble to his feet.

A crash of thunder from overhead set his ringing ears straight, and Dean looked over as the aegyl from the back was illuminated in a flash of brilliant white light. There was another aegyl in the air above him, while one on the ground fought with an aegyl blade. Charlie was still shooting at air as the illusionist crafted shadow after shadow for her to chase, to keep her distracted.

"לִשְׂרוֹף!"

Another fireball appeared, and Dean ducked under it with barely a second to spare. Without his staff, he couldn’t manage delicate spells, which pretty much meant all or nothing.

“ _Perdere_!” Dean hissed, pushing his arm down to fling the spell away from him, right into the ground. The cobblestone fractured and he grabbed a chunk of stone, feeling it heavy in his hand. The fireblaster was still running towards him, but Dean closed his eyes and focused his magic, reaching for the other side of blue magic, the one that he didn’t utilise all that often because of how damn draining it was. All or nothing, indeed.

When he opened his eyes, the fireblaster was still rushing towards him, but he was slowed down to a fraction of the speed he’d been moving at before, legs moving achingly slowly, like he was trying to force his way through cold golden syrup. Dean assessed where he was, where he was going to be, and adjusted the grip he had on the stone in his hand.

When Dean moved, he moved at normal speed – which would mean he would look like a blur to the fireblaster. His heartbeat thudded in his ears as he brought the stone up and then brought it down on his head, stopping him before his mouth could make its way around the first syllable of a word.

Dean had a second to see the man collapse before time came back to normal around him, sounds echoing and spinning around him as his body adjusted. Dean felt the energy that he had used to fuel the spell tear itself from him in an instant of deadly agony, where he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t feel. The fireblaster collapsed, unconscious, and the energy he had gathered washed over Dean as the wizard’s latent magic returned to the world.

Dean gasped as droplets of the man’s blood splashed across his face like light rain. He rolled over and came up to rest on all fours, resisting the urge to vomit. Taking a deep breath in to steady himself after expending so much energy in such a short period of time, he raised his head to look at his surroundings.

Charlie was still trying to find the illusionist. Krissy was actively holding back aegyl. The two aegyl that were fighting the magi were still swooping – in the light of another lightning flash, Dean recognised the aegyl in the air as Cas. He grabbed a set of handcuffs from his belt and chained the wizard’s hands together, and summoned an instant of strength to drive the shard of cobblestone down to pin the chain down to hold the wizard where he was.

He dragged himself to his feet and towards where his staff had rolled, ears still ringing from the rebound of the spell. There was a reason that blue wizards were rare – generally, magic was hereditary, and blue wizards had been hunted to near extinction for their destructive abilities, and how they could utilise time to help them while they destroyed.

Using his staff to support him, he hobbled over to Charlie, fighting the urge to pass out. Channelling magic without a staff was more tiring than most magic – without the staff to separate himself from the magic he was using, he seared himself with his own power as it ran through him.

He stumbled as he reached Charlie, who grabbed his arm. Her Glock was still up, but there was a stressed look in her eyes as she either shot the illusions or punched them out of existence.

Dean leaned his weight on her and stared down the next hooded figure that popped up out of the mist around them. There was a tinge of magic around it that Dean could feel, so he swung his staff and the figure disintegrated.

“They’re here to keep you occupied,” Dean said, voice scratching his throat as he spoke. “We have to go after the magi.”

Charlie didn’t look happy, but she nodded. Dean turned to where he could hear screeching and spells being spat. The mist grew ever thicker as they lurched towards its source, Charlie supporting most of Dean’s weight.

The sprawled body of an aegyl appeared as a blur on the ground through the heavy fog, and they detoured around it, Dean keeping his eyes fixed past it. Charlie stared at the outstretched wing as they stepped over it, white feathers stained with red.

Cas was fighting the magi, black wings beating as he soared around the lightning that had downed the other aegyl. His aegyl blade was out, and blood stained the silver.

“ _Dis._ ” Dean whispered the spell, feeling what little energy he had leave with it. The magi was thrown back a metre, and Cas landed on the ground in front of him, bringing his knife up to poke at the magi’s throat threateningly.

Cas hissed something in Enochian, and the magi tilted his head back so that his hood fell off. The aegyl underneath looked very young and very unabashed at trying to bust in here and do whatever he was trying to do.

The aegyl had a stilted conversation in Enochian, and Dean kept his eyes on the sidelines. There was another wizard out there, and he hadn’t forgotten about them.

Krissy jumped out of the mist, dragging the other wizard behind her. Dean huffed and turned back to the aegyl.

“This guy is _heavy_ ,” Krissy complained. She dumped him down beside him and Charlie knelt down. Dean heard the click of handcuffs. “Hey, what happened to the other guy?”

Dean grimaced as he was reminded of the fine mist of blood that covered his face. “He’s taken care of.”

“Are we gonna help them or…?” Krissy gestured towards where the aegyl were standing.

“We can’t interfere in aegyl business without the permission of a Clan Leader,” Dean told her. “While we did permission for this case, we don’t have any proof that this is related to the case. So we’ve got the wizards, but we’ve got to trust that the aegyl are taking care of their end.”

They watched as Cas fired off another question in Enochian. Then he cut into the skin of his neck slightly, and Dean shivered as blood welled out – bright blue instead of red. One of the easiest ways to tell an aegyl apart from a human – you know, except for the giant ass wings – was to see what colour they bled.

Cas nodded at the other aegyl and she bound the magi’s hands behind his back with a piece of wire that he pulled from nowhere. Dean was grudgingly impressed.

Cas took a step towards them and frowned at the blood coating Dean. “He told us that he’d been hired to kill me.” Cas looked very calm in the face of his would be assassin. “And that he’d been hired by Hellridge Co.”

“Well that’s a bitch,” Dean said, frowning. He moved to stand next to Cas, their arms brushing slightly. The aegyl looked at him, assessing, but didn’t comment, and didn’t move away. Hellridge Co. He knew who it was, of course. One of the most influential facilities on the East Coast, it operated as a way to trade between America and Europe. Dean felt like he’d heard it in the past few days though; like it’d been related to this case. “Cas,” Dean said slowly. “Didn’t you say that Bela worked for Hellridge Co?”

Cas turned to him, eyes calculating. “Yes, I believe that I did.”

~

Things got wrapped up quickly after that. Dean organised a raid into Bela’s fancy apartment in the wealthy part of Chicago. The cops don’t find anything, but Dean came across copies of the book that the library had given him. It’s enough to convince Annie to do a deeper search, and Dean finds evidence of the binding ritual that she used on Anna. Bela spits and refuses to admit anything, but Dean delivers her to the Council anyway. They are more than willing to believe that she could be behind the murder. The Council are a bunch of paranoid assholes, and that only works in his favour when he tells them that someone’s using black magic without a whole lot of proof to back things up. Bela’s confession comes a week later, and Dean doesn’t ask how the Council got it from her. He’s fairly impressed that she managed to last a week. Most people break long before that.

With Bela’s confession comes her accomplice in the Flightcentre; Uriel. Dean goes to tell Cas personally, and their fingers brush against each other more than they have to when Dean gives Bela’s testimony over. Now that the case is pretty much closed, and Cas isn’t involved in it… Well. Dean has some things to think over. But he saves it for later, when he isn’t busy with piles of paperwork and avoiding Gordon so he doesn’t punch his head in. There’s showing all the proper procedures to Krissy, and teaching her more about her magic so she doesn’t breach the probation that the Council put her on. Keeping Annie happy, running around and doing what she needs to keep the CPD running. Dean’s busy and more than busy, and normal life takes over again. Sure, it’ll only be a matter of time until the next abuse of magic comes through the system, but hopefully things will be quiet for a few weeks as Bela’s punishment goes through the wizarding community. Every time he thinks of it, Dean checked his butterfly. Like always, it fluttered around, landing on Charlie or Cas, it’s wings opening and closing slowly. It started to leave a trail of blue dust where it flew, and Dean worried about it for a few weeks until his father dropped by the precinct to talk to him. John told him that it’s nothing to worry about – his magic is just maturing as he gets older. At his feet, John’s hound was almost hidden behind the smokescreen of black mist that hovers around it. Dean, like always, tried not to look at it.

Finally, things go through at the Department. A folder labelled ‘Aegyl Investigation: #00137’ appeared innocuously on his desk one morning. Dean stared at it for a long minute until he flipped open the cover. Inside was the initial report, and then scene analysis. Dean recognised his own writing on some of the pages as updates he’d given to Annie, detailing the magic that had been used at the scene, his own magic in case someone else came through and mistook what he’d done with what the killer had done. Charlie’s writing is there as well, as well as the tech’s and people from the crime scene. Dean finds the drawings of Anna’s body and studies them until he closes the folder for the last time. There are two copies of the folder – as always when the CPD investigates the murder involving an aegyl, a report is provided to the Clan Leader who approved their investigation in the first place. Dean finds the report with several of the pages redacted or missing, and tucks it under his arm. It needed to be taken to the Flightcentre, and since Charlie was off talking to the faeries about a drug ring this morning (for some reason they liked her; Dean supposed that it was Charlie’s demeanour. It left his own seem lacking) so he would go alone. He supposed he could take Krissy, but his apprentice was making herself invaluable around the office, trying to get in the good books of some of the other officers. Hopefully when she started working for real, she could pull some puppy eyes and promise favours, and they might actually listen to her. It was more than what Dean ever got, which is why he was using his knowledge from retrospect to give her some pointers that she will gratuitously thank him for in the future.

He took the file and nodded to Annie on the way out to let her know that he had it. The Flightcentre was as busy as normal, aegyl rushing around tending to the many needs that the dragons had. Dean passed through the newly reinstated ward at the front gate, feeling it pass over his skin with a shiver. The aegyl glanced at him out of the corner of their eyes, but they didn’t stop him to talk to him. Some of them nodded, and Dean wondered if they remembered him.

He didn’t head over to Cas’s office, feeling like he wouldn’t be in there unless he had to. He spent some time wandering around the stables, ducking around the ones that had their doors open to try to avoid getting his head blown off his shoulders. He found his way back to the dragon that Cas had said was his after a while. The top of the door was open, so he gingerly looked over the lip, ready to duck away at any second if it looked like the dragon inside was antsy.

The white dragon was curled up at the far end of the stable. There weren’t any small dragons with her, so Dean assumed that they must have grown up and moved out by now. Cas wasn’t in there, and the dragon looked asleep, so he was just about to go when the dragon opened her eyes.

Dean swallowed as his gaze was trapped in smouldering eyes of the beast in front of him. She looked supremely uninterested by him, but he found that he couldn’t move, feeling exposed as she looked at stared at him.

“Grace,” a voice said beside him. Dean jerked as the dragon looked away. Cas was standing next to him, his wings folded primly on his back. “Sorry,” Cas apologised. “She gets like that sometimes.”

The aegyl started walking, and Dean followed him after a second. Cas nodded at the aegyl that they passed, occasionally saying something in Enochian or pointing out something to the stable hands. They rushed to please him, chittering to one another while the dragons looked on, either looking uninterested or like they were about to burn someone to ashes.

Cas’s body paint was applied neatly, and every hair on his head looked like it was in place. He was confident in his environment, giving instructions with an ease that only came from understanding everything that he was doing. Dean admired the throw of his neck, the way his wings curled and the sound of his voice in another language.

The easy silence between them lasted while Cas walked around the stables, checking on all of the dragons while he did so. In a quiet time where there weren’t any other aegyl around, Dean passed over the packet for the case. Cas opened it to the first page to check the contents and then nodded.

“Thank you.”

“No problem,” Dean told him, tucking his hands into his pockets. “It needed to be dropped off anyway. I just grabbed it before Charlie had a chance to give it to you.”

“Hmm.” The corner of Cas’s mouth twitched slightly, and Dean thought that it might be the start of a smile. They’d have to work on that.

The thought made him sigh. There wasn’t really a reason for him to come back here, after this. He had nowhere near the money needed to either buy or keep a dragon. Aegyl didn’t like humans butting into their spaces either, so it wasn’t like he could just drop by and have a chat.

Cas turned to him. They were in one of the rare corridors that had no other aegyl in it. Cas looked him up and down as he tucked the folder under his arm.

“You know, each Clan needs a human delegate to deal with some of the issues that they come up with the rest of the human population.” Cas’s voice was carefully neutral. Dean slowly turned to look at him with an eyebrow raised. “Each Clan Leader usually elects them, but my father doesn’t care who represents us. Anna’s delegate has approached me to tell me that he doesn’t want to fulfil the position anymore.” Cas hesitated for a second. “You have been discreet in dealing with our affairs, and the aegyl here appreciate the efforts you went to when you helped us. The position is open.”

Dean stared at him for a long few seconds. Cas bit his lip, and Dean flicked his eyes down to watch the movement. He slowly offered his hand, so it was reaching out for Cas. Cas blinked and then folded his hand into Dean’s.

“I think I could manage that,” Dean told him. Cas’s eyes lit up, and Dean grinned, wondering what exactly he’d just signed up for.


	2. Chapter 2

 

The artwork to go along with the fic~~ 

**Author's Note:**

> So, there’s definitely going to be more in this series, so look out for it. There’s just a limit to how much you can put down on paper in two months. Idk when it’ll be, but probably not soonish *cries bc school*
> 
> If you enjoyed this, you should definitely check out the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher :D


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